December 25, 2012

"It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them."
Spike Lee, being noble, perhaps, but also horning in on another director's movie. Still, why should Quentin Tarantino be able to get away with doing a movie about slavery?

"All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors to see that film. That's the only thing I'm gonna say... I can't disrespect my ancestors. I can't do it. Now, that's me. I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody but myself. I can't do it."

And that's the only thing he's going to say.

"What does he want to be made, an honorary black man?... I want Quentin to know that all African-Americans do not think that word is trendy or slick."

He had to say that too.

I think it's fine for him to say all these things. First, it looks like people are going to him with questions. And, second, everything he said was true.

A black IBM executive who had been posted to Africa wrote a book a few years ago thanking God his ancestors had been slaves so that he would live as an American. I doubt that the ancestors appreciated it but they certainly did not want to go back to Africa when slavery was ended by the Civil War.

Tarantino films are comic books for Pete's sake. They bear about as much resemblance to reality as The Wizard of Oz. Lee's rant is like Steven Hawking putting down the Superman movie by saying flying around the world can't reverse time. Lee demeans himself with his ignorance.

The African slave trade refers to the historic slave trade within Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were common in many parts of the continent, as they were in much of the ancient world. In most African societies, the enslaved people were also indentured servants and fully integrated. When the Arab slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many local slave systems changed and began supplying captives for slave markets outside of Africa....

Historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard Chair of African and African American Studies, has stated that "without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred."

Slavery didn't end when it no longer made economic sense. It was a very strong economic institution in the South and would have carried on but for secession and the Civil War.Would it have fallen apart 50-100 years after 1861? Maybe, but it wasn't dying in 1861.

I'm not so sure. Brazil had far more slaves than the American South, and it was even more vital to the economy, yet despite the lack of any sort of civil war slavery ended in 1888.

"Quentin Tarantino, though, defends the film and the choices in dialogue. "I think it's kind of ridiculous (the criticism), because no one can actually say with a straight face that we use the word more than it was used in 1858 in Mississippi. So since they can't say that, what they're basically (saying) is I should lie. I should pretty it up. I should lie, and I don't lie when it comes to my characters and the stories I tell."

A similar controversy occurred within Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, a book in which the 'N-word' features almost 220 times. A new edition came out in 2011, without the offensive word, which was designed for children to use in school, such is the pertinence of studying the book as a piece of seminal literature. This decision was also condemned due to fears that America was rubbing out its tarred history with slavery."

Tarantino is claiming the truth as a defense. I don't mind the fact he is in defense mode, as I don't think anyone should give him or Hollywood any breaks, but instead break their crony corruption bullshit accounting methods with transparent forensics.

"Still, why should Quentin Tarantino able [sic] to get away with doing a movie about slavery?"

Uhhh, because he's a film maker? But maybe you mean something subtle by the term "get away with." If you mean be immune to criticism, it hasn't happened for any of Tarantino's other movies, so I don't expect it to start now. I haven't seen it, but a combination of comedy and graphic images of the cruelty of slavery is certainly going to set some people off. Lee seems to have been set off by the use of the n-word...in a movie about slavery that he hasn't seen. Well, Spike is always good for a quote, I expect it doesn't pay as well as making movies, but if it's all you have...

The sensitive souls of Althouse chiming in here - (I speak in particular of slave-owner Shouting Thomas) - help remind us of why conservative contributions in the arts and entertainment industries are flimsy, flaccid, foolish second-string productions compared to everything else.

Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?

It is a damn fitting irony that Obama's ancestors on his dad's side, being Arab-African and all may have been slave owners and traders of other Africans.

Where the hell is there any evidence for any Arabic origins in Obama's family? I realize the statement above is the stupidest of ridiculous points, but I'm still curious about the origin of whichever fever-swamp conspiracies are left to crop up and fester once the fiasco of birtherism lost steam.

Seriously, thoughts for some of you guys are like the intellectual equivalents of weeds. Brain weeds.

Not a big fan of either. I think "he got game" is the only movie that Spike Lee directed that I've seen. As far as Tarentino goes, I liked about half of "Pulp Fiction." The Kill Bill movies were mediocre.

"Where the hell is there any evidence for any Arabic origins in Obama's family?"

You mean apart from his father's name, appearance and culture?

Yeah. I mean, actual, you know, evidence.

I have a feeling that at least a good third to half of you have first names, etc. that derive from the ancient Hebraic culture you incorporated into your own, and are reminded of on days like today. Doesn't mean you're Jewish Americans.

There is a story that pope Gregory the Great visited the slave market in Rome and noticed some very handsome blue-eyed blond young boys for sale. He asked what kind of people they were, and they answered that they were Angles and came from Britain. The pope said they surely meant angels and determined to send a mission to their country.This mission departed for Britain in 595 A.D., and was led by the future St. Augustine of Canterbury.

The story is apocryphal, but it is a fact that in Roman times - and obviously for some time afterward - Britain's main exports to Rome were tin from Cornwall and slaves captured in a similar fashion as practiced in Afrca.

Google is certainly my friend, pm. But that doesn't mean that there is much if any reason to trust Tom Holbrook's column in The Examiner.com, much less the only source he manages to quote, an obscure blogger named Kenneth E. Lamb.

One principal of a village school, owned by Obama's grandmother Sarah Hussein Obama and supported by Obama's family in the village of Kogelo, western Africa, has indicated that our President-elect has already broken promises made to them back in 2006 on his visit to his homeland. Principal Yuanita Obiero stated his exact words during that visit were, 'Hopefully I can provide some assistance in the future to this school and all that it can be...... I know you are working very hard and struggling to bring up this school, but I have said I will assist the school and I will do so.' Although Obama has not sent any assistance to the school as of this writing principal Obiero and Obama's grandmother are confident he will do so. Grandmother Sarah told newsmen, 'When he comes down here, he will change the face of the school and believe me, poverty in Kogelo will be a thing of the past.'

"I have said I will assist the school and I will do so" -- sad.. keep waiting.

But that doesn't mean that there is much if any reason to trust Tom Holbrook's column in The Examiner.com, much less the only source he manages to quote, an obscure blogger named Kenneth E. Lamb.

Now you are moving the goalposts. You asked for "any evidence" and when it is provided for you, you dismiss it casually. Actually, the onus is now on you to provide evidence that the provided evidence is false.

President Obama has always shown a remarkable callousness towards his father's family and people. Look at how he treats his relatives illegally living in the United States, and those living in poverty stricken squalor in African slums.

Gahrie - "any" evidence is not an excuse for bad evidence. The column is written by some business guy who probably has a political agenda. If you look up his only source, you can't find any sources there to authenticate it further. Even if you wanted to believe that either of these sources were authoritative in any way, you'd have to see what credibility there is to the evidence they cite: None.

That's what historians do - they go to the source used by the source until they find something that can be trusted, verified, authoritative. "Some guy on the internet saying something" is not that standard.

I take it this is a process you're unfamiliar with. But it's what helps keep us from believing that ancient aliens colluded with the Masons in order to build our own national monuments, as well as any other silly little thing that any one of us could make up right now.

pm, no need for hate. Peace on earth and good will to men. The article (an editorial, mores - there is a difference) cites nothing authoritative. I'd be interested more in Obama's African ancestry - (Arab or otherwise, wherever the chips may fall), and am finding interesting Ancestry.com articles on his mother's possible descent from the first African slave in America. Either way, bad evidence is bad evidence. If I stated that "Yankee Doodle went to town, riding on a pony", right here, right now, it would have as much authority as what you cited - some guy on the internet saying something that could not be verified.

What makes Spike Lee any less screwed up than an Irishmen who defines himself by hating the English, a Jew who defines himself by the Holocaust and hating Germans, or an Armenian who can't forget what the Turks did to his ancestors and obsesses over it and burns for vengeance? Nothing. They're all of them, Spike Lee included, twisted freaks. The only difference is the wall to wall cowardice of our best and brightest vis-a-vis blacks, who must not never no how under any circumstances be called on their bullshit outrage stance.

Where the hell is there any evidence for any Arabic origins in Obama's family? I realize the statement above is the stupidest of ridiculous points, but I'm still curious about the origin of whichever fever-swamp conspiracies are left to crop up and fester once the fiasco of birtherism lost steam.

Now you know Ritmo. Don't you feel extra dumb? (Dumb being your normal state). How many ways can you put your foot in your mouth before saying to yourself "Hmmm, maybe I should talk out of my ass the first chance I get".

Oh, lookie what I found here -- a more respectable source -- at least the webpage looks good and professional and it says "London Evening Standard":

But this bucolic scene in his father's village of Kogelo near the Equator in western Kenya conceals a troubling reality that, until now, has never been spoken about. Barack Obama, the Evening Standard can reveal, after we went to the village earlier this month, has failed to honour the pledges of assistance that he made to a school named in his honour when he visited here amid great fanfare two years ago.

Your first comment and you're already playing the race card and going to the Nazi allusions:Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?

jr, your language today is really not very Christlike. Especially when using terms like "bastard".

Merry Christmas to you.

Please take it down a notch. Triumph might have been a bit below the belt, but I didn't know if Chickie might have found it funny. In any event, it's grandly patriotic, nationalistic stuff. Praised for its artistry as much as it is criticized for its ethical stupidity. That's film criticism for you.

O Ritmo wrote:pm, no need for hate. Peace on earth and good will to men

So then why did you start the conversation with:Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?

Hint, if you start the conversation suggesting people should watch Triumph of Will you are not engaging in honest debate, nor are you projecting good will to man. So you shouldn't expect it.

Ritmo wrote:Please take it down a notch. Triumph might have been a bit below the belt, but I didn't know if Chickie might have found it funny. In any event, it's grandly patriotic, nationalistic stuff. Praised for its artistry as much as it is criticized for its ethical stupidity. That's film criticism for you.

O Ritmo, ritmo, ritmo (wish I could use smaller font and make that disappear).. heh, search for something from your footlicking friend Kristof at NYT and you might find something you like better..yeah that is a tease.

I think Spike Lee had his history all wrong, his ancestors weren't stolen by evil white Europeans. All of the slaves transported to the Americas were captured, kidnapped or disposed of due being troublemakers by their fellow black Africans and sold by the same people to European slave traders.

Many African males bought by Arabs as slaves were castrated and turned into eunuchs while the females depending on their beauty, youth and intelligence were transported to the muslim lands and sold to pashas as part of their harems and household and others to brothels.

pm - I'm actually looking for anything authoritative at all on the subject and strangely finding nothing. So like Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark after the government took it, I have no choice but to abandon the search. But if you're up for a trip to Kenya with me... (Kristoff at least travels to the places he reports on).

Jerome - I'm aware that Kenya is close ("dangerously close" as some American nationalists might put it) to the Arabian peninsula, and that a lot of seafaring trade nearby resulted in much cultural (and yes, perhaps even biological) exchange over the years. But Obama has an actual family tree, and researching the Onyangos doesn't get me any closer to these Arabs from whom you claim he is "extracted".

The antiquity of that last term aside, to claim that these cultural exchanges (including names, religion) give him an overwhelming and direct link to those Arabs is about as silly as claiming that all the white settlers who founded Bethlehem, PA (or any of the many other American cities with biblical place-names) were Jews or Sabatean Christians. It's just silly.

Possible - perhaps even likely, but sounds conspiratorially silly - until I see evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, for something even more entertaining (and likely), I found this quote in Wiki regarding Obama's father's family:

Barack Obama relates how his step-grandmother Granny Sarah (Sarah Onyango Obama) describes his grandfather: "Even from the time that he was a boy, your grandfather Onyango was strange. It is said of him that he had ants up his anus, because he could not sit still."

I'm reminded of Muhammad Ali's statement when he returned from "The Rumble In The Jungle". When asked what he thought now that he'd been to the African motherland he replied, "I'm sure glad my grandfather got on that boat!"

Ritmo,If you're going to wade in with your usual bullshit, why do you expect civility? But ok, I'm trying to figure out what the hell you are even trying to articulate, in between your suggestion that we watch Triumph of the Will.

The sensitive souls of Althouse chiming in here - (I speak in particular of slave-owner Shouting Thomas) - help remind us of why conservative contributions in the arts and entertainment industries are flimsy, flaccid, foolish second-string productions compared to everything else.

Apparently 150 years doesn't provide enough historical perspective to discuss what constitutes a decent depiction of slavery for you guys. So why not heat up some microwave-able popcorn, watch Triumph of the Will, and let us know the ideal way to create and critique a more entertaining and relevant narrative of that era in 2160?

This seems to be about the question of movies about slavery and not about Obama's arabic heritage. So lets leave it at that only. What are you trying to articulate.Are conservatives on this board wrong for saying Spike Lee is an asshole for suggesting that Quentin shouldn't be making a movie about slavery? I'm trying to get from you where the Triumph of the Will comment even originated.Can you articulate your position without immmediately coming across like an attack dog? If so, please do, and then we can have a conversation. Otherwise, eat me.

jr - the discursion on Obama's supposed Arab ancestry came after pm's little knock about it. I find it more interesting than anything else, but it doesn't look like there's much more we can find to it.

As far as the original shot about conservatives in the arts, perhaps it was a bit harsh, but no less fair than all the shots the board here takes about liberals somehow being bad at business. Of course there are good, conservative artists - Tolstoy being perhaps the greatest, but also C.S. Lewis (both religious people, too). Mel Gibson has shown talent as a director, but is too insane to take his work seriously, as profitable as some of it has been. Clint Eastwood makes good pictures, but still less of them, less that could be critically acclaimed, and altogether less profitably than those of his more, er, open-minded colleagues. Also, Clint's probably at least as much a libertarian as a conservative.

I'm not sure what more there is that you'd like me or anyone else (including yourself) to say about all this.

Merry Christmas. Soon I take it we will both have to take leave of this chat-board and attend to other things, though, right?

Europeans deserve criticism for the way they exploited and commercialized the African institution of slavery. But some of them deserve credit for the way they acted to abolish that institution. Slavery existed in Africa for thousands of years without anyone ever coming up with the idea that it was wrong....Whatever your color, there' not much in the history of slavery in which to take pride.

You bring up a good and fair point, William. But it gets me around to thinking about how American slavery was unique in the color/"race" differential. Traditionally, conquering nations got to enslave the conquered. That's just how it was. But the proliferation and eventual popularity of racial theories of inferiority/superiority reached fever-pitch in the 19th century (and beyond), and that is why and perhaps how we got around to addressing it at a later time than the other nations did. Our "conquered" were still at large in our own country and that forced us to grapple with the twin sins of racism and slavery more contentiously than other nations who could separate the two evils from one another in their own experience.

O Ritmo wrote:As far as the original shot about conservatives in the arts, perhaps it was a bit harsh, but no less fair than all the shots the board here takes about liberals somehow being bad at business.

NOt analagous, because being bad at business just makes you dumb, not EVIL. Nazis were evil. You are insinuating conservatives are Nazis. Big difference.Again, dont feign peace love and understanding when the first thing out of your mouth is the people on the board are Nazis.

'm not sure what more there is that you'd like me or anyone else (including yourself) to say about all this.

What does that have to do with Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino and the whole question of Spike Lee's critique. WHat is the conservative position? Is Quentin the conservative movie director? Is finding Spike to be completely off base in his critique of this movie a conservative critique? Is calling Spike Lee an asshole, a conservative critique?So then, you too think that Quentin should have no business making a movie about slavery?

Even though his movie about "slavery" is as much about slavery as Jonah Hex is about the Civil War.

But, if were though to make a serious movie that went into the underpinnings of slavery,so what? Why should he be told that he shouldn't be able to make such a movie because he's white, by a racialist like Spike?

NOt analagous, because being bad at business just makes you dumb, not EVIL.

So you are saying that there's no intellectual component to morality? I'll have to disagree.

By that logic, you could say that the Nazis could have been logically/intellectually correct in their goals, but that they just went about them in a mean way.

That is not how modern society judges it. We say that they were both rationally wrong and evil in the extent to which they perpetuated their wrongdoing.

It is also wrong to say that ignorance is always (or even usually) an innocent thing. Ignorance can allow one to commit many wrongs. Ignorance of the law, for instance, is said to be no excuse to breaking it. Just as much evil results from ignorance as it does from knowledge of how to go about doing something you somehow know to be wrong.

You should re-think your ideas on the relationship of reason and intellect to morality. I think they are lacking.

In Hispanic countries, the color line was wavier and more undulating than in Anglo-Saxon countries. But if the racism was less pronounced, the conditions of duress were far worse. American exceptionalism applied to slaves as well. North American slaves lived twenty five years longer than their counterparts in Spanish and Brazilian climes. Is racism a worse crime than early death?....I read a recent article in the Smithsonian magazine about how Thomas Jefferson's plantation was administered. Small boys were set to work making nails. If they fell behind in their work, they were beaten. It sounds pretty awful. But remember that at about this same time, children in England were taken from foundling homes to be used as chimney sweeps. They were made to crawl up chimneys to dislodge soot. The term "light a fire under him" comes from the tactic of literally lighting a fire under small children to motivate them to climb up chimney stacks. Most of these kids died of cancer. The past was an ugly place, and it was ugly for just about everybody.

O Ritmo wrote:So you are saying that there's no intellectual component to morality? I'll have to disagree.

I"m not saying that at all. I'm saying that YOU'RE immediately suggesting that people on the board are akin to Nazis as an attack point. You're not delving into the nuances of intellect versus morality and how the two intersect. No, you're immediately going to the insult. So, then having done that, why get all holier than thou when recognizing youre not being serious but disrespectful I call you out and am disrespectful to you in kind?Even your appeal to christian morality (not that you deserve it) is snide and snarky.

jr - I've said my peace. I guess I'm just not into seeing the redemptive side of right-wing ideas today. Perhaps they exist, though. But I've got a life to live.

In the meantime, I'll leave you to debate just how evil and mean a person I must be with Shouting Thomas, who seems to be the only other one here today fixated with the idea of berating to death whatever he can't debate his way out of.

No more good wishes to you, since you can't seem to find it in you to tolerate them.

Spike Lee is boycotting a movie that is made by a white guy "about slavery" that he hasn't seen. How much "about slavery" is it though?

Was, Inglorious Basterds ABOUT nazi Germany? In that movie the Jews Kill Hitler and all the Gestapo, something that NEVER occured historically. If you're going to veer that far from accuracy I don't see why anyone would take a Tarantino movie about "slavery" with anything but a grain of salt.

I guess he's trying to suggest that Tarrantino is trivializing slavery, but Spike Lee would also have an issue if it were a serious director directing a series study of slavery simply because the director was white.

fix·a·tion (fk-sshn)n.1. The act or process of fixing or fixating.2. An obsessive preoccupation.3. Psychology A strong attachment to a person or thing, especially such an attachment formed in childhood or infancy and manifested in immature or neurotic behavior that persists throughout life.

'humperdink' nails it: once the 'ritmos', 'garages', 'cracks' and 'ingas' show up, the thread is over. they ought to be ignored but, alas, the temptation to engage is too great for some. oh well..lots more internet to be read elsewhere...merry xmas, ann.

Quite right. History shows the blacks in Africa sold out their own kind to slavers just to get rid of the opposition, just as many American Indians scouted for the U.S. Army to get rid of other tribes... not realizing they would just be next once their usefulness was unneeded.

Southern slavery was servants in rich mens houses and farms until Eli Whitney created an industry for cotton to feed the lndustries in England..Then field hands in cotton plantations became gold. The politics took over for the next 20 years demanding secession to hold on to that cotton wealth.

Intimidation of the non slave owners was as bad as the labor unions today.

Free men need political courage. Thaddeus Stevens was a free man. Lincoln was a trial lawyer hired by the abolitionists.

Quite right. History shows the blacks in Africa sold out their own kind to slavers just to get rid of the opposition, just as many American Indians scouted for the U.S. Army to get rid of other tribes... not realizing they would just be next once their usefulness was unneeded.

No, most of the Indians scouting for the Army were Corn Indians - semi-sedentary tribes who farmed as much as they hunted. Their own piece of land (reservation) without the threat of raids from the Buffalo Indians was fine by them.

By any sane measure, Spike Thomas has had a life full of perks and privileges. His childhood was spent in an intact home among loving parents. He makes a good living as a Hollywood director and gets to sit almost on the court at Knick games. If I had a life so blessed, I would sing hosannas every day. Yet he always seems to have a wild hair up his ass.....I think his sense of anger and injustie comes not from white oppression but from growing up short and runty among kids who let short and runty kids know that they were short and runty. That's probably the motivation behind the Knick seats. He gets to rail against all those tall pricks. That's what really pisses him off. Not white people. Tall people.

I'd only point out that Mr Lee's ancestors were not stolen out of Africa. They were sold by native Africans to slave merchants.It doesn't lessen the tragedy, but it does acknowledge the role that other Africans played in their plight.I'd also point out that the average African American is doing far better than the average inhabitant of Africa.

"jr - I've said my peace. I guess I'm just not into seeing the redemptive side of right-wing ideas today. Perhaps they exist, though. But I've got a life to live."

Talk about holier than thou bull shit.

I just read through this comment thread and Ritmo lets off a stink bomb and then accuses everyone else of having the bad manners... all without ever making an argument. As usual.

Then the chortling... whoo-hoo... made him hit me, now I'm the winner!

What does Ritmo think of spike lee's insistence that he owns the history of slavery, that a white guy isn't allowed to have an opinion because he's white, or anything else. No one knows. It's beside the point. Look back at the thread. Look back at any discussion EVER on this blog. Ritmo doesn't have opinions. Ritmo is a vandal. Purely. Winning is tearing people down, tearing opinions apart, winning the *argument* but never the point, since there is no point to win because there was never an opinion expressed.

And on Christmas, call people Nazis, pat your back, quote some scripture... fabulous day for you sweetie. Isn't it.

"No, most of the Indians scouting for the Army were Corn Indians - semi-sedentary tribes who farmed as much as they hunted. Their own piece of land (reservation) without the threat of raids from the Buffalo Indians was fine by them."

I spoke to a woman a bit ago who's ancestor was a scout for Kit Carson (no love lost for that fellow) who had been stolen by indians as a child. He got beaten and thrown in the stockade to rot because he told Carson that he should get paid more because he spoke four languages. A relative found him there and they got him out.

Pretty cool story, though I'm sure it wasn't wonderful for the guy at the time. And the family antipathy for Carson lives on.

Here is the scoop on the n word. It IS trendy, it's used all the time amongst blacks and has been for years. According to my fourteen year old, it is perfectly acceptable to use the n word if it ends with an a rather then an r. Ending it with an a signifies friendship, ending it with an r will get your head busted. Spike Lee knows this, but he's gotta play the offended card for us white folk.

William said... By any sane measure, Spike Thomas has had a life full of perks and privileges. His childhood was spent in an intact home among loving parents. He makes a good living as a Hollywood director and gets to sit almost on the court at Knick games. If I had a life so blessed, I would sing hosannas every day. Yet he always seems to have a wild hair up his ass.....I think his sense of anger and injustie comes not from white oppression but from growing up short and runty among kids who let short and runty kids know that they were short and runty. That's probably the motivation behind the Knick seats. He gets to rail against all those tall pricks. That's what really pisses him off. Not white people. Tall people.

Thomas should thank God every day for his luck at having his ancestors sold into slavery by his other ancestors so that he could grow up here in the US instead of with the descendants of people who's ancestors were not sold.

So should all of the decendants of slaves in the US. If they are not happy here, go on and move to Africa. Good luck there.